Where do you put pots and other kitchen ware during the night to keep everything and everyone safe from bears?

I only boil water in my pot so it stays outside on the ground at night.

My cup and spoon hang with the food at night.

I carry a separate bag with a shoulder strap for all my food and cooking stuff.
All the odor producing stuff is in there.
When I'm not cooking, I sling a line over a tall tree limb, and hoist the whole bag up for a hang system.
We don't have bear canister rules around here, and hangs are generally accepted.

This method segregates all the food-related stuff to one location, and hopefully keeps the scents off my camping gear as much as is possible.

I don't use trekking poles, so it's not a bother. However, I do have a method for clipping it to my pack straps, if I decide that I want/need to do that for any reason.

As the trip wears on, the bag gets lighter and lighter because I'm eating the food that was in it.

In the Smokies, everywhere is "bear country". But only black bears.
Truthfully, the hang probably saves the food from raccoons more than it does the bears.

Edited by towaly on 09/09/2012 10:16:44 MDT.

On the ground, maybe on the bear can

Put the bear bag rope through the handles of the pot and string it up along with your bear bag? I've never done that but it seems like the best option if your pot can't fit in your food bag.

If you can string your pot and a lid or something else noisy up with your bag it also acts as a noisemaker that can alert you if a bear is messing with the food hang.

I use a 700mL ti pot and it fits nicely into my bear canister, although it's not necessary since I only use it to boil water. But I tend to keep my kitchen all together so the stove fits in the pot with my pot handle, lid on top, in the bear can with the food.

My "pot" is a ZipLoc freezer bag that get rolled and sealed when the contents are munched. Then that gets put into a gallon-size ZipLoc "garbage bag" which gets squished and sealed. And that goes into the grub dry sack which I hang.

My tea kettle gets left out, but unless some critter has an urge to chew on aluminum, (which they never have), its pretty safe.

I wash my pot, cup, and spoon after every meal. I usually set them upside down on a rock or log to dry. FWIW, they've never been disturbed as long as I've been hiking.

HJ
Adventures In Stoving

I went to UC Berkeley. And I might hike someday in Mendocino County. What should I do?

Bring cookies.

I typically use the pot(s) only for boiling, although I was wrangled into using my pan for cooking hunks of trout recently. Either way, I clean the pots, cups, bowls and utensils after every meal.

With boil only, the pot only gets more boiling incidental to sanitizing the spoons and cleaning out the bowls. With fish or other food having been in the pot, it gets scrubbed with a little square of scrubby pad and (with fish) maybe a drop of soap, then boiled again.

When done, the pot either stays over in the kitchen area, near the canisters or goes right back in the side pocket of my pack with the whole stove rig. I've never had the pot/stove messed with.

I put the pot in its cuben bag and clip it on my line next to the food bag. I dont eat out my pot often either but I do put my freeze dried food bag in it sometimes for support. On other occasions when I have only boiled after in it, I will leave it out but, since I don't often need it until breakfast it's easiest to hang along with my food. I use Nylofume type bags inside of a cuben summit bag from Zimmerbuilt as my "bearbag".

If you clean it properly there will be no food or food smell on it. A bear will have no interest in it if it doesn't smell like food. So I just leave it next to the bear canister. It has never been disturbed.